Use Your Body Language To Lower Your Cortisol (Stress)

Did you know that the way you hold your body, sit, stand, and move your body through space, affects your hormone levels?

Yes! Really.

This fabulous video from Amy Cuddy (professor and researcher at Harvard Business School) shows us how and why our body language affects our mind, our mood and yes, even our hormone levels:

“So we know that in primate hierarchies, if an alpha needs to take over, if an individual needs to take over an alpha role sort of suddenly, within a few days, that individual’s testosterone has gone up significantly and his cortisol has dropped significantly. So we have this evidence, both that the body can shape the mind, at least at the facial level, and also that role changes can shape the mind. So what happens, okay, you take a role change, what happens if you do that at a really minimal level, like this tiny manipulation, this tiny intervention? “For two minutes,” you say, “I want you to stand like this, and it’s going to make you feel more powerful.”

So this is what we did. We decided to bring people into the lab and run a little experiment, and these people adopted, for two minutes, either high-power poses or low-power poses, and I’m just going to show you five of the poses…”

Affiliate Disclosure

Some of the services recommended on this website provide commission to ListenToYourGut.com. All recommendations are based foremost upon an honest belief that the product, service, or site will benefit my site visitors in some way. Read the full Compensation Disclosure for more details.